Dual Role Suits U. Bucks Doctor With Law Degree He Is Expert On Rights Of Fetus

May 04, 1986|by KATHERINE REINHARD, The Morning Call

Dr. Jeffrey Lenow was a first-year law student studying the landmark abortion case, Roe v. Wade, when the question popped into his mind.

The 1973 Supreme Court decision legalizing abortion gave states the right to take an interest in a fetus that could survive outside the womb. With new technology, medically-troubled fetuses were surviving at younger and younger ages.

Lenow, the new medical director at Quakertown Community Hospital, wondered what would happen if a mother refused to allow treatment on a fetus considered viable. Could the state turn around a law designed to allow abortions and use it to force a mother to save the life of her fetus?

"What a dramatic conflict when you put it in perspective: Mother versus fetus," Lenow recalls thinking.

It was a novel idea in 1981. Fetal therapy was still in the experimental stages. But Lenow's "Star Wars" thinking, as he likes to call it, was right on the mark.

Lenow soon came upon the case of Jessie May Jefferson, a Jehovah's Witness from Georgia who refused to allow doctors to perform an emergency Caesarean section to save the life of her fetus.

The doctors used Roe v. Wade in arguing for the Caesarean. The Georgia State Supreme Court ruled in their favor.

Since then, Roe v. Wade has been used on at least two other occasions to protect the rights of the unborn.

And, Lenow has gone on to become an expert on the subject of the rights of fetuses.

When he isn't in Quakertown, the physician-lawyer is on the symposium circuit putting his colleagues on the hot seat with legal dilemmas that affect their medical decisions.

"A lot of the stuff I think up is really Star Wars," says Lenow. "But, when I lecture these guys, I say, 'You better think about the consequences of your actions.' "

Lenow, a boyish-looking man of 33 who grew up in a middle-class neighborhood on Philadelphia's Main Line, didn't start out wanting to be one of 800 physicians in the United States with law degrees.

"I wanted to go into music," says Lenow. "That was my first love."

At age 6, Lenow begged his parents to allow him to take piano lessons. He studied classical piano for the next seven years, followed by eight years of contemporary training.

But, when he went to Temple University as an undergraduate, Lenow majored in pre-medicine and political science to please his father.

His father, a physicist and mathematician, had always wanted to become a doctor. At the time, Lenow says, Jews were not easily admitted into medical school.

Lenow's years at the piano did not go to waste. He played his way through college at weddings and cocktail parties. His first job was at a tennis fashion show.

After earning his medical degree at Hahnemann University in 1978, Lenow began his residency in obstetrics and gynecology at Abington Hospital.

It was during this time that Lenow began thinking seriously about attending law school. He was disturbed by stories he had heard about doctors committing what he describes as "crimes" against their patients. Physicians didn't seem to be policing their ranks.

"I saw the opportunity to right some wrong," says Lenow.

He spent a hectic three years studying law at Temple's School of Law and working as a house obstetrician at Rolling Hill Hospital in Elkins Park.

But, in 1983, with his law degree in hand, Lenow opted against practicing law. He says the thought of defending guilty doctors was no more appealing than representing patients who were not wronged, but looking to cash in.

Instead, Lenow became a forensic medicine consultant, lecturing not on autopsies, as the word "forensic" conjures up, but on the subject of medicine and law.

"There is a climate right now, a very hostile climate, of lawyer against doctor," says Lenow. "I thought it was very important to bridge the gap between doctor and lawyers."

In November, he landed the opportunity to use his two professions in a hospital setting when he became Quakertown's director of medicine.

Lenow was given the task of overseeing risk management and quality assurance, two non-traditional duties for a director of medicine.

Every month, Lenow meets with the hospital staff to review cases to see whether they were handled properly. "It's called learning from your experience or preventing things before they happen," he says.

Peer review reduces the chances of malpractice. "The mere fact that you know you may come under review keeps you from taking shortcuts you may have normally taken," he says.

Lenow's interest as a law student in Roe v. Wade has turned him into an expert on the legal rights of the fetus. In 1983, he became the first person to write about the subject in an article that appeared in the American Journal of Law and Medicine. He has since penned numerous articles on the subject.

Lenow often addresses his medical colleagues on the subject at seminars and symposiums and has been a frequent guest on Philadelphia radio and television shows. Last week, Lenow was the keynote speaker at a seminar on pregnancy and new technology at Cedar Crest College.